Strategies: Spooky Helmet Master Mode
The hardest helmet to get a star from of the game is with no hesitation the Spooky Helmet. Its "power" is more of a challenge than a help for the player: if the player wears this mask, he will only have 3 hearts, ever. That means no picking up hearts or heart containers. You also lose the ability to respawn by using hearts, thus the only options being paying/using a revive or finishing a floor. The latter will, however, leave you with a single heart, likely resulting in your death. The new update has removed the ability to respawn entirely. Beating this in Easy Mode is already enough of a challenge. However, upon successfully getting a star for this helmet, the player will unlock probably the hardest challenge in the game yet, as he will unlock the Master Key in the Star Room, activating Master Mode. Quick Recap: Master Mode This is basically the Hard Mode of the game. If this mode is active, the enemies will have double their health, their shots will travel way faster and they will also move quicker for the enemies that move around. This isn't too bad with other helmets, but we will see during this page that it is much harder than you would think with the Spooky Helmet. First Step: Preparing Of course, you can't just go down that well with just the Master Key and your Spooky Helmet and pray that you get good loot: you absolutely need to prepare. And for that, here are a few tips: Preparing IRL Get comfy, get your headphones and make sure you have a lot of time because this challenge will take quite a while. If you don't have much time, you can still do a training game to sharpen your skill and learn how to use all the tips that are gonna be given to you Preparing In-Game Pets Of course you're not gonna go into that well alone: you can bring pets along! You can even level them up to make their power even greater. Maybe getting them to level 10 is a little "overkill", but just try to get as high of a level as you can. It is recommended to bring along pets who have the "radish", "carrot" or "hotdog" powers, as the other ones are not as useful (If you have two good pets with the "radish" or "carrot" powers, it is recommended to replace the "hotdog" power pet, that one isn't as useful). You could also bring "bomb" pets if you have trouble with bomb management, but you shouldn't bring multiple. If they are not trained enough, just do a few good Master Mode runs with other good helmet (I recommend Heffalump or Omega) to get lootboxes that can give you gems, gems dropped by bosses or chests/safes/mimics or pet elixers for pet xp. If you don't have these pet powers, just do the same thing: you can get eggs from lootboxes and even if you don't, just spend your gems on buying eggs. Getting used to the Spooky Helmet Try to train with the Spooky Helmet by going down in Easy mode. Of course, it won't be as hard as Master Mode since the shots and movements of enemies won't be as boosted but you can still sharpen your dodging skills and reflexes as well as learn what to do in certain sticky situations, like when you are surrounded by enemies upon entering a new room. Getting used to Master Mode Alternatively, you can try and get used to the new powers given to enemies in Master Mode by choosing another good mask (Again, I recommend Heffalump or Omega) to study the enemies behaviour. You can also try to see how far you can go in a "no-hit" run to put your skills to the test. Second Step: Getting A Good Start Now that you have prepared well and you're ready to go, it's important you start the challenge well. Here are a few ways of getting a good beginning: Getting Good Items This part is really unfair as it is completely random: you HAVE to get good items on the first floors. If you don't, just restart the run, don't waste your time. This is really important because if you're not powerful enough, you could quickly get overwhelmed and lose health, which brings us to our next tip: Losing Health Early Do not, under ANY circumstances, lose health in the early floors. Not only will it make you less healthy against way more powerful foes, which can easily bring you to the ground, but it will also make you face what I like to call the "Hearts Everywhere" penalty. As soon as you lose even a half of a heart, you'll quickly understand: you'll get hearts in chests, safes, pots, enemies, shops, secret shops etc... Not only could you not pick up these hearts, but it will also replace the precious loot you could get from any of the loot sources I just listed. So do not take any risk: even if it involves missing one piece of loot, you'll make up for it on the next floor by not getting hearts instead of precious radishes. Wasting Resources There are 3 items you have to be careful with: keys, bombs and coins. Here's how to use them properly during this challenge: Keys These are pretty easy to use: when you enter a new floor, do not open any chests until you have opened all the treasure rooms and shops. I'm saying "all" because there can sometimes be 2 treasure rooms or 2 shops, so be on the look out of those. Once you're sure you got them all opened, you can safely open all the chests you want. However, every time you touch a chest, run away immediately: you never know when a sneaky mimic could jump onto you and chip away your precious health... But here’s a pro tip. Shoot A bullet at the chest. If it goes through, it’s normal. If it is blocked, it’s a mimic. Bombs These are already a little harder to use. It's better for me to list everything you should unlock with bombs in the order of how useful a loot source is: However, before talking about money management, before going into a new floor, it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to keep at least one bomb and one key. You just need a little bit of bad luck to lose countless amounts of good items... Coins When you enter a floor, coin management is very simple: do not spend them until you've discovered the whole map. You never know if you could find a secret shop with some good items in it... After that, here's some do's and don'ts about buying items: - Don't buy bombs or keys, you can find them roaming around randomly. Don't buy them even if there's a chest you can't open. However, do buy them if you're about to go to a new floor. -Don't use up all your money in one shop, keep a little bit of change on you at all times. -Do prioritize on buying items like radishes or carrots if you need more firepower or bananas, the jumpy boots or the hover boots if you need more ways to escape enemies. -Don't buy hotdogs, these are only secondary items. -Do buy stompy boots as they can often replace bombs in some situations. -Don't buy uber-items unless you've collected enough loot. For more information on uber-items penalties, you can read the "Strategies: Uber-Items Penalties" page. (Writer's note: I'm the one who did that page, soooooo...is self promotion a bad thing?) -Don't buy pet elixers. You'll be able to farm for them another day, for now you need to concentrate on your survival. -Don't buy chili peppers. Just like keys and bombs, you can find these somewhere else for free. However, if a boss battle is coming up and you couldn't find one for free, buy one. -Don't buy magnets. Not only are these secondary but you can also find them in chests/safes/mimics/treasure rooms for free, so don't waste 50 coins on those. Third Step: Having Skill Now that you have the tools, it's time you show everyone what you can do with them. I'm not sure anyone finished it once, not even I have done it, and if people have completed that challenge before, it's probably only a few. Now that you've trained well, it's time you go out there and show Mr.Spooky what you're made of. Good luck, soldier. (Writer's note: My personnal highscore is floor 10, so I hope you'll do better! :D) By The Way... ...there are potentially ways of beating this challenge using friends/revives, but what's the fun in that? Leave your friends alone, give these revives as food for your pet mimic and get on into that well! You're not gonna cheat, right?...